


Summary Executions 1 - Lotrips

by cupidsbow



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Circus, Crime, Ficlet, Historical, M/M, cupidsbow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-22
Updated: 2008-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbow/pseuds/cupidsbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three ficlets written to prompt: Circus; 18th Century; Western.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summary Executions 1 - Lotrips

**Author's Note:**

>   
> 
>   * llaras asked for "circus au!"  
> 
>   * sonadorita asked for "18th century AU"  
> 
>   * aleathiel asked for "a lotrips western? Or a murder mystery (of the classic limited cast, small location kind)"  
> 
> 


### 1\. Rich and Strange

This is the story of Orli, youngest clown in a troupe of three, and always the one who's the butt of the joke, or having to scoop up the elephant poo. What he yearns for is to be one of the horse riders, and he stands in the wings every night watching Viggo and Liv working with the team so gracefully it makes his breath catch -- as though they have a telepathic connection to the animals.

The only one who believes he'll one day make his dream come true is Elijah, the weird kid from the psychic booth, with too-big eyes and a way of seeming to know just what you're thinking. Well, not really a kid, but his pale, too-solemn face is ageless. Orlando never would have picked him as a friend, but he hadn't had much say in it. One day Elijah was just there, talking too fast, and offering him hot, salty fries, and after that he's always there, as though they've always been friends, and after a while Orlando forgets to be wigged out anymore.

Then one night Elijah burst in to Orli's caravan, breathing hard, and comes right up to the bed. Orlando jerks awake at the bang of the door, going, "What? What's happened?" And Elijah says, "We have to go. We have to go _right now_," his fingers hard on Orlando's arm; something about his eyes makes a shiver run down Orlando's spine, and even though it's crazy, his mouth snaps shut, and the next minute they're out in the cold, sneaking through the dark, past the big top, past the animal enclosures, and on into the scraggle of the forest edging the fairground. Just as they slide into the shadows, Elijah pushes him down into the bushes. A moment later, headlights flash through the night, right where they'd been standing, and there are three police cars spilling officers in tac vests and guns, all moving in on Orlando's caravan.

"Come on," Elijah murmurs, pulling Orlando away. "I parked on the other side of the hill."

And that's how they run away from the circus.

###  2\. Fleet of Passage

This is the story of Orlando, a young officer assigned to the _Friendship_ on the voyage of the First Fleet to Botany Bay. He isn't one of the crew, but rather one of the soldiers in charge of the convicts.

At first he hates his job and his filthy, scurvy-ridden charges, but then one day on deck he sees a thin, pale boy standing in the sunshine, eyes raised to the sky, such a look of yearning and loss on his face... and from then on, Orlando is always looking for that boy again, watching out for him.

The whole crew and all of the convicts become wracked with scurvy, and there are days when the only thing that keeps Orlando from jumping over the side into the blissful, endless cool of the ocean is the memory of that wide-eyed look of yearning, and the way that sometimes, sometimes, when he staggers down into the hold, those eyes turn and look at him with that exact same expression.

And then they are there, finally -- the call of _land-ho_ singing through the air, the dun grey smudge of the new land on the horizon; and when they finally touch ground and camp is made, Orlando finagles and charms and bribes with what little money he has, and finally manages to get into see Captain Arthur Phillip -- a distant relative on his mother's side -- and shortly thereafter finds himself assigned a convict as a personal servant, one Elijah Wood.

And later that morning, Elijah stands silent, eyes wide, as Orlando directs the colony's smith to strike off his leg irons.

### 3\. Blood and Arcana

Orlando takes the job as Deputy because he's been on the trail, droving cattle, since the summer he turned fifteen. He never expected to be the Law, he just wanted a steady, respectable job for a stretch, one that let him sleep in a real bed at night and eat three squares a day. But it turns out he has a knack for talking to people and settling them down, and before he quite knows how it happens, he's the Sherrif's right hand man.

And then three days after the church picnic, he finds himself in the local boarding house, looking down at the gunshot wound in the naked body of Sheriff James, who's sprawled face down in Mrs Havilland's best sheets, blood soaking into the mattress like the first rain of spring into the fields.

Downstairs in the drawing room, waiting for him, are the house's guests, including Sheriff Mortensen, visiting from Little Neck just down the river. He's the one who called in Orlando and the other Deputies, and made sure none of the guests or servants left. Orlando isn't keen to face the guests, especially Madame Blanchet, who has a way of looking at him that makes Orlando feel all of six years old and still in short pants. Ripped ones, with mud splashes and maybe a half-dead frog in the pocket. And the Right Honorable McKellen is almost as bad, with the way his eyes peel away Orlando's clothes.

Orlando tears his gaze away from the small entry wound in the Sherrif's back, and scratches another note in his journal. He can hear voices and footsteps coming up the hall, and a moment later Elijah and Deputy Boyd are standing in the doorway, shocked to stillness by the blood.

"Jesus Christ," Elijah whispers, clutching his camera to his chest.

Boyd settles the tripod down with a clatter. "Yeah, but what a way to go."

"Boyd!" Orlando snaps, and both he and Elijah turn and glare at him, but Orlando is secretly relieved: the abandoned corset and hose all tangled up with the Sheriff's boots on the floor are hard to ignore.

Boyd just rolls his eyes. This is not his first body; his previous job was digging graves in the Catholic churchyard.

Giving up on Boyd's moral degeneracy as a lost cause, Orlando says to Elijah, "Can you take a photograph of this? Will it work in here?" The sun is almost down, and the gaslight in the room is dim.

"Um," Elijah says, and fidgets with the camera, pointedly not looking at the body. "Sure. I can use a flash. Where do you want me to--"

And after that the three of them settle into the routine of helping Elijah get his contraption set up and aimed where it needs to be, and for a brief moment, while Elijah is hunched over, all his attention on lenses and other arcana, Orlando just stands and looks at the sweet curve of his neck, and can almost forget what's waiting for him outside.


End file.
